OK, quick: Are our beaches being taken over by jellyfish?

National Geographic blogger Carrie Arnold – for a post in the magazine's online "Weird and Wild" section – sought out scientists to find out why so many beaches, especially in the Pacific Northwest and United Kingdom, seem to be overrun by the creatures.

UO biologist Kelly Sutherland of the Robert D. Clark Honors College, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology and the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, was among the experts queried.

“As humans have more and more contact with our oceans, we are more likely to notice or perceive problems with jellyfish,” says Sutherland in the story titled "Why Are Jellyfish Swarming This Summer?"

—By Jim Barlow, Public Affairs Communications